Too Good to Check

A Sunday column from the New York Times that comments on a story we followed last week:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/opinion/17friedman.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage

News Blog Project

What should our group be doing?

By this point, everyone is in a news group and should have one designated "blog layout editor." This person is in charge of the blog being created. You may be using blogger, tumblr, or wordpress.

The rest of the group should be collecting past articles, writing new articles, and submitting photos, videos, artwork or anything else that will make your News Blog look as professional as possible. Remember we want this blog as 'hyperlocal' as possible. Think Smithtown, Smithtown, Smithtown!

How do we combine all of our information?

All of this visual and textual content should be digitally passed on to the "blog layout editor" by using Google Docs, the school's public drive or a flash drive. Warning: Anything on the district's public drive will be erased by the next day. So, back up everything placed there.

What types of content do you want on the blog?

Being as local as possible is our goal, but realistically we can't have 10 earth shattering news stories on the blog. So, have some fun. If there is a Pizza sale going on, take a picture and write a short blurb about "DECA has pizza sale." If your English class is acting in class, ask to take a picture and write about it on the blog. Take your writing and reporting seriously but the articles don't have to be so serious.

When is this due?

I know this week has been a bit stop and go, but let's shoot for the end of the class on Friday.

You can do it, I know you can!


How will we be graded?

I will be looking for five qualities in your blog -

1. Clear, Concise Writing
2. Creativity in Layout
3. Knowledge of Audience
4. Variation in articles, content
5. Hard work - Did everyone contribute? Is this 3-4 days of classwork?

Citizen Journalists

This link from yesterday's newspaper goes right along with issues raised in the "News War" documentary. Please read it to see how Yahoo plans on using non-journalists to feed their news sites.

After you read the article, please list in your notebook 3 positives and 3 negatives you see resulting from Yahoo's plan.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/yahoo-seeks-news-from-its-users/?ref=technology

Ethics

We were talking about ethics in Journalism. What's happened to ethics in school?

http://news.yahoo.com/video/business-15749628/students-busted-for-cheating-22954742

Critiquing a Photograph

Please print out this handout from the NY Times Learning Network:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/learning/pdf/2010/20100423photocritique.pdf


Then search various news sites for what you consider to be a great journalistic photo.

Some sites you may consider:

http://www.life.com/


The Year in Photos - 2009

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1946595_2010901,00.html

New York Times Lens Blog:


http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/

Newspapers in Decline

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/view/21.html?c=4wm

NEWS WAR

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/view/16.html?c=4wm

Watch This!!!

WATCH THIS!!!